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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

food stamps

SNAP Participants Can Now Use Benefits to Pay for Grocery Delivery with Instacart

Instacart announced today that it has partnered with grocery retailer ALDI to allow those on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to use their Electronic Benefits Transfer card to pay for and get groceries delivered.

The pilot program is launching first in Georgia where, according to Instacart’s announcement, 12.5 percent of the population is impacted by food insecurity, disproportionately affecting communities of color. The program will begin with 60 ALDI stores in Georgia before a planned expansion to more than 570 stores across Illinois, California, Florida, Pennsylvania in the coming months.

SNAP participants will be able to shop from ALDI through Instacart’s website or mobile app. When creating a profile, they can enter their EBT card information and a payment method, which will cover the cost of SNAP-approved food items. Taxes, tips and fees cannot be paid for with the EBT, so a second form of payment will also be needed. Once all that is set up, SNAP participants can shop for items and schedule their grocery delivery.

Online grocery shopping took off during the pandemic, as people were concerned about venturing into public places like grocery stores. Those fears have subsided somewhat, but grocery e-commerce is still projected to hit $250 billion in sales by 2025.

Instacart’s partnership with ALDI is the latest effort to bring more equity to the online grocery world. Low income communities are often food desserts that lack access to fresh food. The ability to shop online and have groceries delivered is one way to help those impacted by food insecurity eat more healthily. For the past couple of years, the startup All_EBT has been using Facebook Messenger and virtual Visa cards to allow SNAP participants to shop online. And both Amazon and Walmart have expanded their EBT online grocery shopping to more states.

The only downside to Instacart’s program is that it still requires SNAP participants to pay for taxes, fees and tips. Those three items alone can add up and that seems like it might be a barrier to get more people to use the program. While the EBT card couldn’t be used to cover these costs, it’s a little disappointing that Instacart, which has raised $2.4 billion, isn’t doing more to supplement them for the end user. It seems like Instart’s gig workers who do the actual packing and delivery, might skip jobs that don’t offer a healthy tip, especially since the pandemic has yet to subside in this country.

All_ebt’s Grocery Delivery for Food Stamp Participants is More Important Than Ever

In addition to changing life as we know it, this COVID-19 pandemic has also reinforced the enormous inequalities in our society. Working from home and setting up Zoom playdates is trivial compared with the struggles low income families on food stamps face just getting groceries.

All_ebt is a startup that wants to make getting groceries for those on food stamps a little bit easier. We’ve written about All_ebt before. They use a combination of Facebook Messenger and virtual Visa cards to enable those on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to shop for groceries anywhere online and have them delivered.

In this time of quarantine, getting groceries delivered takes on new importance. The ability to buy groceries online and have them delivered means those on food stamps don’t have to put themselves or their families at risk of exposure to COVID-19 by going to the store, and it can also mean that parents who need to work can get groceries dropped off at a convenient time.

I spoke with Eli Caldéron Morin, Co-Founder of All_ebt today by phone and he said that there’s been a surge of interest in his company’s service. “In the last three days, we’ve signed up 800 people each day,” Morin said “We were signing up about 10 people a day before.”

When people do sign up , they get a virtual Visa card in moments that they can use to buy SNAP-approved food items (i.e. no tobacco or alcohol, etc.). A physical card arrives in the mail a few days later. With this virtual Visa card, they can order groceries through Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, or even other third-party delivery services like DoorDash that are delivering SNAP-approved food from independent and convenience stores.

As Morin explained it to me, there are two parts to any electronic benefits transfer: the main part to pay for food, and a discretionary part, which is like cash. Delivery fees are paid for out of that discretionary cash.

Right now, All_ebt makes its money by charging a $4.99 monthly fee to the user, but eventually he wants to shift that burden to the merchant. To help it scale to the point where it can effect that shift, All_ebt recently launched an equity crowdfunding campaign to raise $107,000.

All_ebt has previously raised money from angels, has won hackathons put on Y Combinator and Facebook, and was a winner on a famous investor, Tim Draper’s, TV show “Meet the Drapers.”

For those who are on food stamps, or who know someone who is, if they are interested in using their SNAP benefits for grocery delivery, they can sign up with All_ebt at allebt.org.

Study: Online Grocery Shopping Could Help Alleviate Food Deserts

A study out from Yale University this week found that online grocery shopping could help people in food deserts get access to more healthy food choices.

The study, led by Eric, J. Brandt, MD and titled Availability of Grocery Delivery to Food Deserts in States Participating in the Online Purchase Pilot, looked at the eight states that are part of the Online Purchase Pilot (OPP) provision of the 2014 Farm Bill that allows people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to purchase groceries online. That online buying provision could go nationwide after the trial ends in 2021.

From Yale’s study:

Among 8 states participating in the USDA’s OPP, online grocery purchasing and delivery services were available to more than 90% of urban food desert census tracts and SNAP households within them, but these services were rarely available in rural food desert census tracts. Our results suggest that existing grocery delivery networks, when combined with online grocery-purchasing, could potentially strengthen access to groceries in many areas where it is most lacking. However, grocery delivery fees are not covered by SNAP and may deter online purchasing.4 To help maximize OPP benefits in food desert census tracts, the USDA could consider extending SNAP benefits for both online grocery purchasing (as in the OPP) and delivery, although rural areas may be least affected.

The eight states examined were Alabama, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington.

Brandt’s study is coming out at the same time the Trump administration is looking to tighten rules around who can receive SNAP benefits. Just today, the Department of Agriculture gave final approval of that would kick 755,000 out of the federal food stamp program. As The New York Time reports:

The rule, which was proposed in February, makes it more difficult for states to allow able-bodied adults without children to receive food assistance for more than three months out of a 36-month period without working.

Thankfully, for those on the SNAP program living in a food desert, All_ebt is a startup that can help facilitate online grocery shopping. All_ebt uses a combination of Facebook Messenger and virtual Visa cards that allow people to purchase SNAP approved items online (though there is still the matter of the delivery fee). Earlier this year, during the government shutdown, All_ebt also released budgeting tools to help those on SNAP manage their money.

While online grocery shopping is still a small part of overall grocery purchases, retailers are putting in the infrastructure to make ordering and fulfillment faster and more automated. Things like robotic micro-fulfillment promise to turnaround online orders for delivery faster. If more people in food deserts can get groceries delivered same day, that’s more revenue for the retailer. More importantly, it can mean an easier way to a healthier life for those living on SNAP.

As Brandt told Yale News “If you live in a food desert, online grocery delivery really stands out as a way to get healthy food that potentially can save your life.”

All_EBT Offers New Tool to Help SNAP Recipients Budget Purchases

Among the many, many (many!) problems caused by the government shutdown, the 39 million people on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) face an additional issue: they got their money early.

Typically earlier is better. But in this case, because of the shutdown and the machinations the Department of Agriculture put in place to fund the program, February benefits started being paid out last week, much earlier than normal. This earlier-than-normal distribution has states warning SNAP recipients that they’ll need to budget their purchases to last throughout February, if not longer should the shutdown continue so that funds are not available for March.

To help with that budgeting, All_ebt, which uses a combination of Facebook Messenger and virtual Visa cards so SNAP recipients can shop for groceries online, has launched a new tool to help those on food stamps plan ahead.

“Just within the last two weeks, there’s been a flood of people registered and signed up [for All_ebt],” said Eli Calderón Morin, Founder and CEO of All_ebt. “Now they are nervous about their benefits. How do they better control their spending?”

To access the new feature, those registered with All_ebt just need to send the company a note through the All_ebt Facebook Messenger bot asking for the feature to be turned on. Once activated, the budgeting feature does two things.

First, users can set the service up to receive notifications about their EBT balance either through Facebook Messenger or the All_ebt Android app. Users set the notification frequency to be daily, weekly or monthly to get running reminders of how much SNAP money they have remaining.

“Right now, they have no easy way to check their budget,” Calderón Morin said. “They have to call a 1-800 number and sit on the phone for ten minutes. There’s no way to get a daily notification saying ‘How much budget do I have left?'”

In addition to notifications, users can also set up a budget in All_ebt through Messenger or the app. Because All_ebt knows all about how much their users receive in benefits, the company can set up a spending plan for them. Additionally, it can provide users with a pie chart of how they are actually spending their money.

Without providing specifics, Calderón Morin says that All_ebt has grown and now serves people in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. He said that a “high percentage” of people on All_ebt have disabilities and are relying on the company’s technology to get the food they need. He also said that Amazon and Instacart are the top two places where All_ebt users grocery shop.

Though the shutdown has no end in sight, All_ebt is providing tools so people on food stamps can see–and plan for– their own situations a little more clearly.

All_ebt to Open Second Pop-Up Store, Has Amazon Go-Like Ambitions

All_ebt, the Los Angeles startup that helps people on food stamps purchase groceries and other approved goods online, is going bi-coastal and adding a second pop-up store in Charlotte, NC this summer.

These pop-up stores are small, temporary and don’t carry a ton of inventory. Their primary mission is community outreach, and providing a physical place where low income families can come in and get in-person training on how to use All_ebt’s online payment system.

We wrote about All_ebt’s mission to expand the shopping options for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants earlier this year. The company uses Facebook Messenger and virtual Visa cards to allow low-income people to more fully participate in the digital economy by giving them the ability to shop online at places like Amazon Fresh or Safeway–something they can’t do directly with their benefits card.

“The people that are on food stamps aren’t ignorant,” said All_ebt Founder Eli Calderón Morin, “They have a higher capacity for technology than we assume. They use mobile differently because it’s their primary device.”

The new Charlotte pop-up store will open on June 15th in the Packard Place building. It will carry roughly 90 different Women, Infant, Children (WIC) items (milk, cheese, produce), and Morin said that the Charlotte City Council has been an enthusiastic supporter of the project. From there, Morin plans to open up even more temporary pop-up stores around the country.

But Morin isn’t just looking at geographic expansion, he’s also thinking quite a bit about the future of payments. All_ebt was accepted into the Queen City Fintech accelerator program (which also happens to be at Packard Place). That acceptance came with a $20,000 check that Morin will use to help build out the service, part of which includes adding computer vision talent to his roster. Morin wants that expertise to help build out an Amazon Go-like experience for SNAP participants.

With all these efforts, Morin is attempting to use technology to help remove the stigma and, in doing so, any embarrassment that can arise when shopping with food stamps. By opening up shopping opportunities online, low income families can shop from the privacy of their home. By connecting All_ebt with computer vision-driven Amazon Go-like payment systems, SNAP participants can grab what they need and go without having to go through any potentially complex administrative process of paying with food stamps at the checkout.

But Morin admits that an Amazon Go-like ideal experience is still years down the road. A more immediate use for computer vision was just created at the recent Facebook F8 hackathon, where All_ebt built a way for customers to use the cameras on their phones to get nutritional information and other data about items, including produce. That feature won the company another $3,000 for its coffers.

All_ebt’s work comes at an ominous time for SNAP participants. The new farm bill making its way through Congress would impose stricter work requirements for recipients. In February, the Trump administration suggested replacing some food stamps with boxed delivery of food. And more recently, the startup Propel, which let food stamp recipients check their account balance, has been hobbled as it ran into trouble with a government food stamp database contractor.

All of this actually makes Morin’s work more important, and thanks to All_ebt’s worth with the accelerator and Facebook, that work will become more widespread.

Trump’s Meals in a Box Plan for SNAP Participants is Full of Baloney

In an effort to cut spending on food assistance to low-income families, the Trump administration has proposed replacing some food stamps with a meal delivery type service. The Supplemental Nutrition Assitance Program (SNAP), often colloquially referred to as food stamps, provide a monthly supplement for purchasing healthy food to eligible, low-income families.

Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney said these meal deliveries would be akin to Blue Apron, but the comparison is downright laughable when you look at what the government actually proposes.

Blue Apron customers get to choose their meals and receive insulated boxes of fresh proteins and vegetables. According to The Washington Post, recipients of “America’s Harvest Boxes” would get “shelf-stable milk, juice, grains, cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned meat, fruits and vegetables.” All these items would be homegrown by “American farmers and producers” for that added jingoistic je ne sais quoi.

For households receiving more than $90 per month in benefits (that’s 81% of SNAP households overall), half of those benefits would come in the form of these government-provided boxes.

Mulvaney defends the approach, saying that the government can buy food wholesale at a low cost, which is more economical than having people buy it directly at retail. Which technically may be true, but critics were quick to point out many of the problems with this Harvest Box approach.

Then there are the retailers. Walmart and Target could lose billions with these proposed cuts to food stamp purchases, and it would certainly hurt the new USDA pilot program set to launch later this year that allows food stamp purchases to be made with retailers online.

And that doesn’t even touch on the logistics and expense of having the government oversee preparation and shipping of millions of boxes on time on a regular basis.

To be sure, the food stamp program in America needs to be updated and improved. And there are startups such as All_ebt out there trying to make it easier for SNAP participants to access more options for fresher, healthier food through online food deliveries.

“We are going backwards in terms of technology,” said All_ebt founder Eli Calderón Morin told me by phone. “Fundamentally, I don’t think we should try to police what people eat.” Morin believes the conversation should be changed from punishing people simply because they are poor to empowering people to make better financial and healthier choices—which isn’t going to happen if the government takes those choices and boxes them up.

All_ebt Enables Online Grocery Purchases for those on Food Stamps

The new Amazon Go here in Seattle generated a lot of buzz when it opened last month. And while the store is a miracle of technology, it’s yet another venue where people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, can’t shop.

It’s modern roadblocks like this that caused Eli Calderón Morin to co-found All_ebt, a Los Angeles-based startup that helps people on food stamps participate in the digital economy that so often leaves them behind. Approximately 43 million Americans receive SNAP assistance, with money delivered via an electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card to facilitate payments. The problem is that currently, these EBT cards can only be used in select physical stores at the point of sale, and not online.

According to Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center:

  • 23.5 million people live in low-income areas more than one mile from a supermarket.
  • Low-income zip codes have 30 percent more convenience stores, which tend to lack healthy items, than middle-income zip codes.

The ability for SNAP participants to order groceries via delivery from places like Amazon Fresh or even Safeway online provides a new avenue for people to access healthier food.

All_ebt wants to become a payment platform for EBT transactions. The first step in this process has been the creation of a Facebook Messenger app. To use it, SNAP participants create an All_ebt account and upload a picture of their EBT card or WIC coupon. Once created, users are issued a virtual wallet that can be used to buy food online.

So, when a user needs $50 for groceries, All_ebt is authorized to charge that EBT card $50. All_ebt then provides $50 for use in the new virtual wallet. Morin is quick to point out that money is not being transferred, and purchases made via All_ebt must still adhere to the purchasing restrictions that come with any EBT purchase (no alcohol, no tobacco,  etc.).

Morin wants everyone to have the same opportunity to eat healthier food. To help people even more, All_ebt has set up a pop-up location in East LA, complete with a mini supermarket to sign people up and show them how to use the service. Morin wouldn’t give specific numbers, but says that they sign up 5–10 people a day.

Providing access to online transactions for lower income households has also caught the attention of the government, which announced a SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot last year. Retailers such as Amazon, Safeway and Wal-Mart are participants in the program. The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service expects the pilot to launch in 2018.

All_ebt was part of the Visa developer program and was a finalist in the Visa Platform Challenge. The company is bootstrapped, with seven people working there, and has begun the search for investors. While All_ebt is currently refining its business model, Morin says they want to become like Braintree and Stripe for EBT transactions, and want to have merchants pay the transaction fee.

Like so many things these days, the very idea of food stamps has become highly politicized. Regardless of your party affiliation, All_ebt’s mission to make healthy food more available to everyone is a good one and a goal worth supporting.